WordPress is an open-source PHP CMS released in 2003 that powers roughly 43% of all websites, the top share of any CMS. Its 60,000+ plugins and 12,000+ themes make it the common foundation for blogs, business sites, and ecommerce.
Ghost is an open-source headless CMS focused on publishing and membership, founded in 2013 via Kickstarter, serving over 2 million sites and known for a clean writing experience, built-in membership, and high performance.
Drupal is an open-source PHP CMS created by Dries Buytaert in 2000, the third most popular open-source CMS worldwide, with 40k+ modules on Drupal.org, native multilingual and headless support, suited to complex enterprise websites.
SilverStripe CMS is a New Zealand-maintained open-source PHP CMS publicly available since 2007. Its 2-layer architecture and $0 core licensing model fit teams that value code control and long-term maintainability.
Orchard CMS is an open-source .NET content management system from the ASP.NET ecosystem whose modern version, Orchard Core, is built on ASP.NET Core under the BSD-3-Clause license, with 8K+ GitHub stars and 2.4M+ NuGet downloads, ideal for .NET teams building content sites and applications.
MODX is an open-source PHP content management system initiated in 2004 and released under GPLv2, known for content-presentation separation, Template Variables (TVs) and fine-grained permissions. Free and open source, it suits developer-led, high-performance and highly customizable website projects.
Liferay is an enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) founded in 2004 in Diamond Bar, California, USA. Its open-source community edition is free, and one platform integrates CMS, DAM, Commerce, Search, personalization and AI. Rated 4.6/5.0 on Gartner Peer Insights with a 360+ partner network, it suits large enterprise portals and multisite scenarios.
Jahia is a Java Digital Experience Platform (DXP) founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 2002. Offering CMS, portal, personalization and integration through an open-source core plus an enterprise edition, it focuses on highly regulated industries such as banking, insurance and the public sector.
DNN (DotNetNuke) is an open-source .NET CMS that originated in 2002, deeply integrated with the Microsoft stack, with built-in native multilingual support and granular permissions, plus 1000+ extensions in its marketplace, ideal for enterprise portals and intranets.
Contao is a German open-source PHP content management system that originated as TYPOlight in 2006 and was renamed in 2010, known for accessibility (WCAG) and native multilingual websites. Built on Symfony components with no license fees, it suits government, association and media sites.
CMS Made Simple is an open-source PHP content management system created in Canada in 2004 under the GPL license, known for its lightweight template and module system. It suits individuals and small businesses building content sites at no license cost.
Agnostic CMS is an open-source headless content management system created by Tom H. in 2020, built around GraphQL API with custom content modeling and multi-environment deployment, self-hostable at zero license cost.
Joomla is an open-source content management system released in 2005 that powers about 1.9% of websites worldwide. Native multilingual support and a strong user permission system, combined with 6000+ extensions, suit membership sites, social platforms and organizational portals.
CouchCMS is a content management system released in 2011 that runs without a database, embedding editable regions into existing static pages via HTML tags, ideal for designers building lightweight sites for small-to-medium clients.